Long Man (Vintage Contemporaries)

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"Searing. . . . [A] poetic literary thriller. . . . An engrossing blend of raw tension and gorgeous reflection." --The Washington Post

"Powerful. . . . Aching, passionate, and vivid." --Daniel Woodrell, The New York Times Book Review

"Swift, gorgeous and wickedly smart, Long Man is nearly perfect. . . . As compulsively readable as it is intellectually profound. . . . Greene is a major American novelist in waiting."--Minneapolis Star Tribune, Critics' Pick

"Luminous. . . . In language as unadorned and lovely as a country quilt, Greene invites the reader deeply into the seclusion of the valley and the mountains above. A remarkable love letter to a forgotten time and place." --The Atlanta Constitution

"This book gives me hope for the future of the literary novel. . . . A virtually perfect blend of lyrical writing and page-turning plot. . . . Beautiful." --Karen Sandstrom, The Plain Dealer

"A story that forces us to examine our relationship with nature, our understanding of community and, significantly, of social class. . . . [Greene] lends this Depression-era story a moral and ethical vibrancy that we should all pay attention to." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A tense tale of the sacrifices people make in the name of progress." --New York Post

"Exquisite . . . Greene's prose is as mesmerizing as the story she weaves. Read-ers will never forget this vividly drawn landscape. . . . [The novel's] breathtaking suspense and images will haunt me forever." --Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life

"Like Greene's debut, Bloodroot, the prevailing tone of Long Man is solemn, elegiac. . . . Greene allows the back stories of this small but rich cast of characters to overlap in places, like thin pleats in a skirt." --The Toronto Star

"Greene even-handedly renders this lost and mostly forgotten world to perfection." --The Free Lance-Star

"Rich and absorbing. Equal parts mystery, family saga, and backwoods romance, Long Man captures the collision of hardscrabble folk with the unstoppable modern world." --Stewart O'Nan, author of A Prayer for the Dying and Emily, Alone

"Long Man reads like a painting--the kind that unravels from a scroll, with a landscape that moves through space and time. . . . Greene, born and raised in East Tennessee, evokes [beauty] with the simplest strokes." --The Greenville News

"Vibrant. . . . The novel grapples with real questions about our relationship to nature and the price of progress, even as it delivers a story as touching and timeless as a folk tale." --Nashville Scene

"One of the best young chroniclers of contemporary Appalachia. . . . Long Man dramatizes historical events that are still controversial today and raises issues that will resonate strongly." --Mountain Xpress

"A gem. . . . Long Man is so palpably real that I feel I've spent the last few days actually living in Greene's corner of Depression-era Tennessee. It is a special book--a beautiful piece of work." --Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War and The Realm of Last Chances

Annie Clyde Dodson and her three-year-old daughter Gracie are among the last holdouts in a tiny town, standing in the way of progress in the Tennessee River Valley. Just a few days before the Long Man river is scheduled to wash Yuneetah off the map, Gracie disappears one stormy evening. Did she simply wander off into the rain, or was she taken—perhaps by the mysterious drifter who has returned to his hometown on the verge of its collapse?
 
Set against the backdrop of real-life historical events, Long Man is a searing portrait of a soon-to-be-scattered community brought together by change and crisis, and of one family facing a terrifying ticking clock.